Turmoil
by Michiko Mokuyaba
Summary: Commander Jane Shepard needs to learn to live with herself all over again after being raised from the dead. Can she tolerate her borderline psychoses and save the universe? Can she heal well enough to hold onto the few things that really matter?
1. Chapter 1

**Jane Shepard**

I stare defiantly at the woman facing me through the lens of the mirror. That girl, Jane Shepard, she can cry. She can admit to being torn apart inside. She can shy away from the responsibility of saving the galaxy. She can wallow in all the loss of life she'd witnessed. Comander Shepard couldn't. If I did, then I wouldn't be the strong leader that I needed to.

I hadn't realized just how sharp the divide between Jane, my reflection that only I can see, and Shepard, the outward persona of strength I had. Perhaps the divide had never been so pronounced before. Perhaps instead, it had really started at Vermire.

Tactically I knew that getting Ash had been the right call. If the geth managed to jury rig even one AA tower, the Normandy might never have made it out. It tore me up inside, tore Jane up completely to do that. To abandon Kaidan, the man Jane could have loved. The man I _did_ love. But Shepard couldn't risk the rest of the crew for that one, small possibility. The possibility of a happy life, even in my state of turmoil.

Maybe the divide had started earlier, on Akuze. Seeing the jaws of that monster rip through my entire unit, the people I was supposed to protect, that damn near killed me. Shepard came out of that, but Jane practically died then and there. It could have left anyone a mess. It didn't help that when I was finally reunited with corporal Toombs much later everything I'd done to console myself ripped away. I'd thought everyone was dead, and that there was nothing I could do but run. And instead I'm face to face with a ghost, a man I could have saved, but left for dead. Only he didn't die. It was worse than death. He got toyed with and experimented on by Cerberus for years on end with no hope of recovery or rescue. I condemned him to that. Once again, Shepard told him to put down the gun, while Jane begged that he would turn it on me. And it's worse than that, now that I find myself betraying Toombs' trust by working for the devils who held him captive for so long. I hope he can forgive me. Shepard doesn't care. But I do. Jane does.

Maybe it was even earlier, on Mindoir as I watched my entire life; my family, friends, town, school, all torn to pieces before my eyes. I silently watched the girl who sat next to me in science class get raped by Batarian slavers, then beaten until she was subservient, then implanted with a control device. The word implant doesn't do justice to the horror of the action it's to clinical and clean. They bore a hole into her skull and drove wires into her brains. The whole time Jane watched in horror, Shepard was watching for an opportunity to escape unnoticed. That probably broke me in ways I can't even begin to fathom.

Then again, maybe my duality was always there, and each event had made it worse and worse until I had all but disconnected myself from Jane, the weaker me. The me who would have died time and time again if Shepard had given her the opportunity. Somewhere along the line, I had pretty much become Shepard full time, and the only place I saw Jane was in the mirror. The one place I could never escape from her.

The Illusive Man's words, as Miranda's, still rung in my head. The whispering of my life literally passing me by was now at a full roar in my mind. I had lost two years. The destruction of the Normandy wasn't a dream, it wasn't an illusion of any kind. It happened, and I died. Then I have been wrestled from death's clutches by some freak show Cerberus scientists because I was so fucking special. This was one of the few times I found myself still agreeing with Jane instead of Shepard they should have just let me die. I was used up, torn to shreds, and exhausted. The only reason I kept going was because Shepard didn't know how to stop. She had made sure never to learn that.

If I hadn't let myself be Shepard, then I never would have made it off Mindoir. I would have stayed there and watched Jessie be violated then die, never finding Zabaleta in time to get the hell off the planet. If Jane had her way, I would have curled up and cried until they found me, and either died or worse.

If I hadn't let myself be Shepard, then I never would have survived Akuze when everyone else around me was dying, and my skin burned with acids that could melt the armor off a mako. Jane would have embraced dying with her brethren; it would have been fitting. Shepard couldn't stand the thought, and once she saw that everyone else was dead, she got the hell out of dodge.

If I hadn't let myself be Shepard, the Normandy might have been blown to smithereens. Joker, Garrus, Liara, Tali, Ash, everyone, even Kaidan, might well have died. Shepard knew that those deaths would have cost so much more than just Kaidan's, but Jane wanted nothing more than to have died in his embrace, screw the rest of the galaxy and its right to survive.

And now Jane had gotten her wish. I'd died, I'd been allowed to leave the galaxy after saving it. It was a pretty good run, and I was more ready than most people. What was it Liara had always said? Oh, yeah. I embraced eternity. And I went out spectacularly.

But it didn't end there. Now I'm awake, being told in the biggest rush I've ever heard a story that they need my help again. Shepard tells me that our job isn't done. Jane tells me that we've been robbed our reward for last time. Frankly, I don't know which me to side with. They both have valid points, and I'm just so tired that I don't want to deal with either fear, or determination. I just want to sleep for another two years. Maybe more.

I focus my attention back onto the mirror. It's the first moment I've gotten by myself since waking up. The shuttle isn't big, and I'll find no piece once we land on Freedom's Progress, and even though the tiny bathroom isn't ideal, I need to collect my thoughts a little. If Miranda and Jacob decide they need the bathroom, they can damn well wait a few minutes.

I recognize most of the scars on my face. The one on my lip is from when my mother shoved me down so that I wouldn't be seen by the Batarians. She had pushed so violently that my face had impacted with the glass coffee table. I had always hated that thing, and as if some lite motif had come true, I was the one to break it.

The scar that bisected my eyebrow had been from my first weeks in basic. I had joined the Alliance more because I wanted to get away than because I wanted to help prevent that from happening again. I think that was my first experience with my own dual nature. Part of me, the part I now know as Shepard, was all about the military training. She wanted to protect, she wanted to kill bad guys. She was ruthless, efficient, cold, and calculating. But she was tempered with the other part of me, Jane, who never stopped being a frightened little girl. Jane stayed in the military only because she got to be on board a ship, and never had to stay on a planet waiting for another ambush like that. I got the scar when I had been trying to help another kid from being bullied, because I so saw myself in him. Shepard stepped in front of the bullies and knocked them away, but I didn't realize that he'd had a switchblade. The kid I'd helped ran away, and everyone involved got disciplined for disorderly conduct. Even the kid who got bullied. He killed himself three weeks later.

It was then that I knew I needed some way to deal with this. I had started wearing dark makeup black eyeshadow, more liner than was necessary, black lipstick it was my way of telling people that I would always be in mourning. And it was Shepards way of intimating people further. It didn't, at first, incite the reaction I'd hoped for. It looked like I was seeking attention, and the men in basic were a bit too eager to oblige. Jane would have stopped then and there and gone back to a quiet, reserved appearance. Shepard loved the attention, and was firm in her dealings with anyone who was too pushy. Not one of the men in the infirmary had told anyone that they were there because of me. Not one of the men outside the infirmary said anything either.

At first I thought I would stop once I got my foothold, but it sort of became a trademark for me. People would look up the barrel of my gun, Shepard's gun, and they'd be all the more terrified of the agent of death standing above them, black hair, black eye sockets, black lips, high contrast pale skin and piercing blue eyes was how I was described by some of my practice mates. Shepard could wear that face with a grin that would put the fear of God in you, whereas Jane viewed it more as a form of Turian face painting symbolizing just how damaged we, as a trio, are. Once I was known for it, though, it stuck, and like a bad nick name, it was easier just to get used to it than to change it.

The rest of the scars, though, are new, with orange glowing underneath them. I hate the way it looks. It makes me feel more like Shepard, and even though I thought I already _was_ her, I hate that I can't see Jane underneath any more.

The shuttle's about to enter atmo, according to the little lights blinking above the door. Either this is a short shuttle ride, or I've been in here longer than I thought. Either way, things are about to get interesting.

**End chapter one.**

I know that this chapter is a little on the short side, and I also know that it was an entire chapter without any interaction, but I promise it will get better, and more interesting. I've taken a little license with the time line and the dialog, etc., because it will flow better for the story I'm telling, but I think it should still fit in pretty well, all things considered.

And, no, this will not be just Shepard pitying herself through the entire story, although because this is dealing with Shepard's mental instability, there will be a lot of that.

Hope you enjoyed, thanks.

-M.


	2. Chapter 2

**Jane Shepard**

I couldn't explain the connection if I tried, but the feel was somehow the same. My foot touched down on concrete, and it was the same concrete as that of the science station on Akuze. I slowed my breathing even though I knew the futility of it. I could feel the incoherent fear of Jane burbling through my cool exterior, but I needed to keep my head. God, the handle of my pistol wasn't always this slippery, was it? No, that's the inside of my glove. I was sweating like a fool. I was so glad my helmet was down so no one could see the cold sheen on my face. I was gonna have to lift it soon for clear combat, but I'd thank the cover it gave me at that moment.

They told me Freedom's progress would be empty, just as if the people had vanished, but I didn't realize the degree to which that would bother me. Something was so wrong there that I wondered if I was being watched. I swore I could feel eyes all around me.

_My foot steps onto the soft sand. This is no good. Whatever happened here happened a while ago. Where is everyone?_

As I came around a corner and headed into one of the living stations, I noticed that everything was still set up neatly.

"Looks like everyone just got up and left right in the middle of dinner," I heard Jacob mumble behind me.

"Come on, we're on a deadline here. Look fast but don't miss anything,I heard Shepard say, as it was her hand that lifted my helmet.

_What was that rumbling? Did something just collapse underground?_

"_Clarkson, take point. Toombs, bring up the rear," I command sharply._

"_Aye, aye, sir."_

I whirled around quickly, startled at a noise I'm still not sure I really heard.

"Hear that? Sounds like FENRIS mechs," said Jacob. Damn his insistence on speaking so much. My heart rate must've been going crazy, I could hear it in my ears. I wondered if it was loud enough that they could hear it, too? Was that really what Jacob heard?

"_That doesn't sound good," I can hear Toombs mutter._

"_Keep your wits about you, this isn't right," I tell everyone. I swear I just saw the ground move, but that _doesn't happen._ No use scaring my squad over shadows._

"_Oh my God, what is that thing!" I hear blared over the mic._

Shephad aimed my pistil directly at the eye of the YMIR and squeezed off a few rounds. Oh God, would that I were focused enough to deal with the hunk of junk biotically, but my veins might've burst with this rapid heart rate plus the biotic stress.

"_Jesus Christ! Clarkson!" I hear Jane scream from my lips. One of the rare moments she gets on the surface, and of course it's fueled by futile concern. That's how she always surfaces. I dash for cover, yelling at my men to do the same. Three more, Gonzales, Goddard, and Bashir, are taken down by some vile green liquid which eats through them like they're salt or something. A few drops ricochet off and get me in the arm. The rate that it dropped my shields and burnt through my armor was staggering, but the pain was astonishing. Biting down the urge to scream in pain, I reach around cover to shoot the abomination attacking my men. When I see it, when I actually lay eyes on the thresher maw, the terrible sight of the beast, it's Shepard that actually remembers to fire._

The last blow took out the YMIR.

_Everyone else is dead. I need to kill this thing fast. I need to avenge them._

_No, I need to get out._

_No, I need to die with them. I need to avenge them._

_Two voices, but both of them me. The stronger of us prevails, as she always does. Shepard's collected voice calls for extraction, and she means it _now, _mister._

_The thresher maw was still there. There was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run. If I could just last a little while longer, the shuttle would be here, get me the hell out, and bomb that sucker. If Shepard could just kill that monster, I could be safer._

_I peak around the corner of the remnants of the wall I'm using for cover. I have one shot left to do this, and maybe if I'm lucky I could piss it off enough to get sloppy, at the very least. It would go underground for a while instead of being alert while it was above ground, eating the corpses of my squad._

_One shot is really I all I get._

_I ease the trigger in slowly._

"Prazza was and idiot, and he and his men paid for it. You're welcome to Vetor's omni-tool data, but please, just let me take him."

I snapped to attention at that. Where the hell was I? My gun was still ringing in my hand. No, scratch that, that was Shepard's gun, through and through. It was just fired, and judging by the bullet hole in the display, I shot something belonging to this sputtering Quarian.

"Tali?" I asked. No, wait, I remember. Shit. I talked to her earlier and everything. Vetor? Right, squeaky, worried little thing whose display I shot. I think I was just having an indistinct conversation with him about . . .

_People getting stolen from their homes. Fire everywhere. Screams. Blood. Jesse's screams as she being violated in every way a sentient being can violate another._

_No!_ I was talking to him about the collectors. There's no fires, there's no blood, there's hardly even a disturbance here. _This is not Mindoir!_

Both Cerberus operatives behind me spit words I paid no attention to, only at that moment coming down from whatever the hell I had been high on previously.

"Look, we're not going to get more out of him any way. Tali, take him to the flotilla. Get him better," I said.

"Thanks Shepard. I'm glad you're still the one giving the orders around here," Tali said with surprising warmth. She moved to help Vetor out of the room. I felt sickened to the bone. God, whatever set me off this time made me loose a lot of time. I needed to slump over and try to calm down and remember what just happened, not the events of Akuze. Again.

But Shepard wouldn't let me show weakness in front of Miranda and Jacob. If they're to be part of my new team, I need to be Shepard to lead them again. How things change and how they stay the same.

…

The report to the Illusive man was no better. It seems like no matter where I go, this dichotomy and this anxiety follows me. Maybe something went wrong with the Lazurus project. Or maybe I really am just crazy.

The Illusive man, right down the the cigarette and his raspy drawl, reminded me disturbingly of my drill instructor from basic. The one who pushed Jane into obscurity, and gave Shepard the means to flourish. He was also the instructor who pushed Cadet Collins to the frustration that he took out other the other Cadets, like Cadet Johnson, who I protected only to have him kill himself. Trying to keep the memories flooding me from overwhelming me and cracking my cool is no easy task. I'm glad Shepard was up to it, because I was exhausted, and I don't think I could've done it on my own.

In fact, it seemed like Shepard actually had an interest in the vile splinter group. That bitch never did have a conscience when I wasn't enforcing it.

_Remember what they did to Toombs. And Kahoku,_ I told myself. I don't care if they also brought me back. They've done too many terrible things. I can't afford to cut them any slack.

Reuniting with Joker was bittersweet. I was glad to see the old goat again, sure, but once again I lost it on the inside, and the only thing holding me together was, you know it, Shepard. I'm relying on her more and more, like I said, I think I'm becoming her. No one can blame me for falling apart at being reminded of the _Normandy_'s explosion, though. That was only yesterday to me, even if to everyone else it was two years ago. That it should still fill me the fear, and that it should still make me remember in such detail as to loose myself wasn't unheard of, surely?

As if there weren't already enough reminders of my past, a past I'd rather get past, the damn fuckers had rebuilt the _Normandy_. They made a crude copy with upgrades and gadgetry. They stocked it with a crew that I couldn't trust and didn't like. It's like they're determined to spit on me in every way possible. It was a cruel parody of my former life, and a grave insult.

But Joker seemed happy about it, so I bit my tongue and smiled when he asked if we could name it the _Normandy_.

…

I'd been instructed to go to Omega first and look for one doctor Mordin Solus. I didn't want to. I couldn't imagine stepping foot off the ship and having to interact with Batarians like they're anything but monsters. After what I witnessed on Mindoir, and all the weird things I've been experiencing lately, I wasn't sure I could manage it without shooting a few.

My last encounter with a Batarian had resulted in my slowly shooting him to death, even at the expense of human lives on asteroid X57. I relished it, I enjoyed it. It felt like the souls of everyone I knew as a child were cheering me on.

And then I was empty.

And I couldn't sleep. Even when I could, I just had terrible dreams that I don't want to remember for weeks afterward.

We were en route to Omega, and I couldn't fucking sleep then, either. Miranda said there may be a few minor side effects of the Lazarus Project that should wear off after a bit of rest, a commodity I hadn't had any time for when those flashbacks were happening. So maybe sleep would help. I had a little less than a day until we get to Omega proper.

But I couldn't sleep. I slept last night, and I was rewarded only with nightmares like I'd never known. I regretted sleeping that night, but I was thankful for the fact that my quarters were on their own deck, and that meant no one could hear Jane's blood curdling scream as I relived trauma. I guess I didn't experience any weird anxiety of flashbacks while I was awake, but still, it's too high a price to pay. I sorta felt more like Shepard than usual. Distant, cool, competent, if a little aimless. I guess I would describe it better as numb. And when I looked in the huge mirror at in the bathroom of the captain's cabin, all I saw was Shepard. Big, gaping, orange-glowing holes in my face. I couldn't even really recognize myself any more. It wasn't that I had changed appearance so much as I didn't know how to find Jane, buried as she was under all that Shepard I'd been having to use lately.

Jane was right. They should have let me die. Why did they let me die?

_They're selfish, and they wanted to live. Wouldn't it be nice to feel like that?_

Before I knew what was happening, I had punched the mirror in the cabin. Blood slowly trickled down the cracks in the glass. I had just anthropomorphizing an aspect of my personality to such a degree that I had tired to hurt it physically.

"Jesus, is this really what you've been reduced to? Idiotic mess? Pull yourself together," I said to myself.

_There's no together. You're faking it, and one of these days, you're going to regret it._

"If I followed what you thought, I'd already have eaten my own gun and died time and time again. What would I regret? I'm alive!"

_Living isn't everything. Remember Kaidan? He liked me. And I liked him. Why did you kill him?_

I punched the mirror again, hating myself so fervently for both sides of this conversation. I didn't know which one I agreed with more, but I certainly agreed with Shepard's need to punch something to feel a little better.

I took a few deep breaths, then washed the glass out of my hands. Let them sting and burn a little, it would be better than the numbness I felt today. I tried to sleep again. Maybe I'll have this better sorted by the time I get to Omega.

**End chapter two**

Thanks to everyone who read the first chapter, and thanks especially to everyone who came back for more. And even more, thanks to my reviewer. I really appreciate it, because there's nothing that inspired one to write like knowing a reader is waiting with bated breath. Or something like that.

I know I promised more interaction, and I know technically I followed through on that, but there will be more in the next chapter. These first two chapters are really for mood building.


	3. Chapter 3

**Jane Shepard**

I stared at the data pads for hours. I didn't want to sleep just yet; I'd missed two years already. It's time to catch up on some things.

Navigator Presley, Ensign Polermo, Petty Officer Giles, Corporal Jenkins . . . I needed to remember all these names. Jane needed to memorize them so that I would never stop pushing myself for their sake, as well as my own. I need to add their names to the growing list I keep. Everyone who died on Akuze. Everyone who died on the _Normandy_. Kaidan. Add to the list that Garrus was among the missing, and it was enough to break Jane's heart, the frail little flower.

"Whatever, your heart brakes at a stiff breeze."

_A little compassion might do you some good._

"And it might make me like you. Then where would we be?"

_We'd be with Kaidan._

"We'd be up to our asses in Collectors, and we'd be dead."

_I still don't see why that's so bad._

"I don't know why I ever let myself become so attached to that whining bucket of angst," snapped Shepard.

_I loved him. He's the only person I trusted enough to come out for. He's the only person after Mindoir who got to call me by my name._

"As if that's worth anything. The less out of you, the better. I turned my thoughts back to the list.

Knowing Garrus, it was as likely as anything that he'd resigned from his Spectre training mostly to get away temporarily. His father probably pushed at him, telling him how he'd failed even that, and told him how much of a disgrace he was. Then, who knows? Maybe he got himself so drunk that he went off and died. There was no information, just a trail that had long since gone cold.

At least I knew were the rest of the living crew were. I would probably be better off without them. There's no need to go opening old wounds in myself and let Jane run amok with friends. Plus, I sure as hell know they're better off without me.

Garrus. Fuck, Garrus, I thought you were going to get your act together and start again. You were going to be a Spectre, like me, and he'd be there to watch my back. Dammit, Garrus, where did you go?

"_What made you decide to join C-Sec?" I ask. His mandibles contract ever so slightly. I wonder what that means. Confusion perhaps?_

"_My father." Garrus's replies are terse, as always. He tries to be all business, no play, but I can see through that. He's another rookie, and young recruit eager and excitable. If I get him onto the topic of Saren, he'll spill the beans. But he won't open up, which is all I want the crew to do. Open up, rely on each other. We're going to need trust if we're going to make it through this. So I need to press on._

"_Your father was in C-Sec, then?"_

"_He's still there. Legendary. I joined up because I believed in justice, and because I wanted to make him proud." There's something missing from that response. Even if I have no idea how to read Turian body language, I still know there's something missing there._

"_But you had to live in his shadow, and no one could live up to that," I finish his statement. His eyes widen a fraction, and is mandibles contract again. I'd guess that was surprise. Damn, I need to learn how to read aliens better._

"_Yeah. Nothing could make my father proud of me. Either I was exceptional, which was expected, or I was average, which was a disappointment. Or I was a disappointment, which was shameful. After joining up with a council Spectre, I think I'll forever be in that last category." He's beginning to loosen up. That's good. I knew he couldn't hold onto the tough kid act long. Now if only I knew how to deal with Wrex._

"_Wouldn't your father be proud that you're going to take out such an infamous big bad as Saren?"I ask with humor in my tone. Who wouldn't be proud? That's not just exceptional, that's amazing._

"_No." I kinda hope that Garrus is having as much trouble reading my face as I'm having reading his, but I doubt it after all those years in the citadel. __"M__y father's a C-Sec man through and through. If you can't take him down the right way, don't do it at all." His mandibles flare at that, then retract just as fast. Without a doubt, I recognize that as anger._

"_I'm guessing you don't agree with your father on that."_

"_It shouldn't matter how justice is served, as long as it gets done instead of letting scum like Saren walk around free."_

"_It should matter how it gets done," I hear Jane say to him. __"B__ecause mercy is something that makes justice worth having."_

_Garrus straightens up. I think he's studying my face, looking for some clue as to what that means. I'll bite._

"_The Batarians think we wronged them, right? I mean, humans." Oh, that was embarrassing. I didn't mean to talk about him like he's Human, not turian. __"T__hey see anything they do to Humans as justice. But it's not. It's cruelty."_

_This time Garrus slumps. He's clearly thinking about what I said. __"T__hat's . . . I never thought of it that way. Thanks, Shepard."_

_But that wasn't Shepard. That was Jane._

…

The stench of Omega assaulted my senses. It filled my brain with yet more visions and memories. I surrendered to Shepard this time, and didn't even try to resist them. With Shepard in control they didn't seem to come at all. Instead, I was to listen to Jane begrudging Shepard's every action. My every action.

"Who cares what you think,I said aloud to her. "You've never done anything useful a day in your life."

"Excuse me?"

"Miranda, when I'm talking to you, I'll be clear about it," I snapped.

_You care what I think, Shepard. You always have. That's the only reason you're here, and you know it._

I felt the urge to punch that damned mirror again. Fiercely. I still haven't had it replaced. I think I'll keep it broken, and a reminder that Jane is broken beyond repair. She's a relic from a time passed. She wants to trust people like Jacob and Miranda, just because she doesn't want to watch her back. She wants someone at her six. But she can't have that. I need to watch my own back. My team dissolved and died long ago, and I'm not making a new one for her. Shepard won't waste time on something like that. I was here for three things, and three things only. This time I wouldn't get suckered into everyone's problems. I got Zaeed Massani, I would get Solus, I would get Archangel, and I would get the fuck off this terrible station.

But, of course, it's never that simple. I had to jump through the hoops of this ego case queen of Omega, her head filled with flattery for herself and narcissism. I didn't want to deal with Aria T'Loak, but I especially didn't want to have to share any more words with her Batarian lackey. So I listened to her one rule, and I listened to her masturbatory speeches, and I sat patiently until she was ready to be done talking. Then I asked her to tell me where Solus and Archangel were, and I had to sit through more of her solipsistic musings. I silently thanked the spirits that not all Asari were like her, with an extra emphasis on Liara not having been like her.

When finally I was allowed to leave, I bristled with rage and picked up Zaeed and Jacob. Having Miranda with me just annoyed me too much. Jane didn't care for her. Shepard hated her for her lack of discipline, and lack of proper attire.

"This is a military operation, not an excuse to dress up as a slutty soccer ball. Get some proper armor, or stay the hell on the ship," I'd told her. Besides, tactically we didn't need to have two biotics in the squad. We only would have gotten in each others' way.

As I walked to the quarantine zone to pick up the scientist, I glanced over the dossiers on my omni-tool.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Zaeed and Jacob knew enough not to inquire about what was wrong, even though I could feel them exchanging confused looks behind me.

Archangel. Turian sniper, has squad leading experience, made a mess of the entire Omega mercenary scene, and getting hunted down and killed probably right about now, according to Aria. Shepard liked his style. And I realized that he probably was a little more time critical than Mordin Solus. Besides, something about the name Archangel seemed strangely auspicious.

…

"_So what made you decide on the military life?" Garrus inquired over the din of the mess hall. It's only fair, I asked him the same thing a while ago._

"_I got rescued by an Alliance strike team when I was seventeen. I joined up to get away from the fact that I had nothing to leave behind," I say. I'm being surprisingly candid, but then again, he did ask._

"_Did you ever want to be something different? I always think that if the turian military wasn't mandatory for citizenship, I might have gone a different route," he says with what, by this time I know to be the turian equivalent of a smile._

"_Well, I was a little girl at one point. I wanted to be a ballerina," I joke. The truth is, Jane wanted to be a musician. A cellist. Shepard wasn't vocal enough back then, I don't know what she wanted._

"_I have a hard time picturing you in pink," laughs Garrus, with no small amount of humor._

"_What do you think you might have been if you weren't military?" I ask, sitting down to eat my food. Garrus' food smells weird, a little like the ocean. And I don't mean, 'oh, what a beautiful poetic thing,' I mean it smelled like saltwater and rotting fish. But not in a bad way, exactly, that's just the closest description of I have._

_He takes a hearty bite of it. I'm glad my food is red, not aqua._

"_I think I would have done pretty much the same thing I did, I would just have done it with less of a spine. Pressures from my father, and all. I never really made up my mind about what I wanted to be."_

"_Well, you haven't done too badly for yourself, all things considered," I smile at him, helping myself to my spaghetti._

_He smiles back. __"N__ot bad at all," he agrees._

…

It wasn't hard to sabotage the mercs' gear, and infiltrate their ranks. Even Jane didn't had a problem with any of it other than having to interact with the fucking Bararians. There were times when my heart rate threatened to climb. There were times when I could feel the threat of panic rise in my throat. But I fought them down hard, and managed to keep my head. It was just like Miranda had said, the side effects would wear off after some sleep. I was already beginning to feel better, and more in control of myself. If nothing else, that made me more annoyed at Miranda. She was almost always right.

Still, I didn't like my chances on that bridge. It was very nicely fortified. Archangel knew what he was doing, choosing this location. And from the rate at which freelancers were apparently disappearing, I didn't want to cross it even one bit. But what was the worst that could happen? I die? Woopty-friggin' doo. I'd take Jacob and Zaeed with me. As far as I was concerned, they were already damned, though, so it didn't matter.

I launched myself over the divider.

_I have to get under cover now, and hide myself. There are gun shots and explosion everywhere. Panic is rising in my veins, and bile in my throat. I have to bite it down. I have to get to cover._

"_Jane! Help me!" Oh God, that scream could chill the bones of anyone with an ounce of sympathy in them. I'm frozen in place. Jesse's blood is everywhere._

I shot two mercs in the back, with no small amount of satisfaction. They went down easily to the force of my pistil.

_I need to be quiet, or they'll hear me. I need to need to be still or they'll see me. The moans from the ugly fish-faced monsters are loud, deep and guttural in stark contrast to Jesse's screams and cries for help. She knows where I'm hidden. She's looking _right at me_. Thank God they're not paying attention to her. Thank God they're not paying attention to me._

_It's like some crazy orchestra. The steady beat of mortars going off in all direction. The wind section of a girl being raped. The soliers themselves are the brass, booming commands, and groaning, and laughing as their prey goes down. The string section are the carrying cries from mother to daughter, from friend to friend as everyone tries to escape even though they're encircled. And underneath is all is the percussion of my heart drumming so loudly it's nearly drowning everything else out._

_Other than the focus on Jesse._

I took a shot to the chest and went down. I laid there a moment, wondering why the world wasn't going black. Mercs ran past me, and Jacob dragged me into cover, screaming at me to wake up. I couldn't hear him over the ringing in my ears.

_My mouth is covered, and I can't see who has me. I panic, I try to scream but it's stifled by a gloved hand. I bite, I kick, I swing wildly trying to get away, but nothing loosens the grip. Finally I relax. If there's nothing I can do, there's nothing I can do._

_The hand holding me is trembling violently. I turn my head to look at my captor for the first time._

_A young Human man, thinly covered in sweat, trembling, frightened, donned in an Alliance uniform. He looks a me._

"_Shh," he says as soothingly as he can be expected to be, given the circumstances. __"T__here's an extraction ship that way, but you need to be quiet, and go as fast as you can,he says. I nod violently and without hesitation. I just need to get away. I need to get _out_._

"Pull yourself together, it's just a concussive round! I'm not going down so easily,Shepard said, as much to Jane as to Jacob. "By the spirits, this guy's no slouch. I'm lucky he seems to like me."

"Like you?" spat Jacob. "The man just shot at you!" I grinned.

"And I'm still alive. Can anyone else here say the same?" Jacob's brow furrowed. Well, some people are just no good about taking a bullet _or_ a joke. Luckily, I wasn't one of those people. Archangel seemed like he might be all right in Shepard's book.

"Let's get moving, no sense waiting around," I said, pulling back out of cover and gunning down a few more mercs on the way. The concussive shot was unmistakeably Archangel's way of saying "Sure, come on in. It's a bit of the mess at the moment, but I'm sure you'll forgive me."

_I wait in the shuttle, trembling, wishing I knew where my parents were. Surely they'd gotten out? Surely? It feels like hours, years creep by as we wait for other survivors. When the shuttle is full enough, the Lieutenant who saved me jumps aboard, and the pilot takes off._

_I look out the window. The town I've known all my life is shattered, completely unrecognizable._

_I look at Lieutenant Zabaleta, the man who sent me off to the shuttle. He gave me a chance to go on dispute the town. To get to stay with some of my old life, instead of being a slave to the Batarians. I can't say no. But I'll never be this weak again. Anyone who can get ripped away so easily doesn't get to get that close to me ever again._

I look at Archangel. Archangel, who so used to be Garrus, but there's something intrinsically different about him. He's like Mindoir. I can't recognize him.

But he's like Zabaleta. He's a connection to the past, but still something new and different. I can't hold her back. Jane is too happy, too relieved to be held back.

"Garrus!_" I thought you were dead, you idiot!_ Before I know it I'm hugging the turian tightly out of sheer relief that there's something in this world that isn't more fucked up than when I left it. Zaeed and Jacob can shift behind me uncomfortably all they want. Garrus is alive, and I don't have to add him to Jane's list.

"Shepard," Says Garrus warmly, the sound reverberating in his chest. "Nice timing. You always were there to pull me out of a mess."

"I always will be," says Jane.

The relief of seeing him alive was quickly pushed aside and I set my mind on my current task. The details of Garrus slowly slipping away from me no more than an hour later are hard to remember. The thoughts of that blue blood being the last thing I see of him, desperately calling Joker for help and applying the medigel as fast as I knew how all blurred into one, palpable moment of terror. Waiting for the Hearing Zaeed's calm voice telling me he was a goner didn't help my panic, and it became a repeating hum in the symphony of that moment. The crash of the gunship, the whirr of the shuttle, the gurgling as Garrus struggled to breathe, the memories of Mindoir. All of it made a terrible discordant tune, punctuated by the blue blood all over my hands and armor. The crescendo was here, and Jane lost it, and started chanting the names of those who had died under my command. Shepard held herself together. Shepard stopped the bleeding. Shepard got Garrus to the infirmary.

And Garrus' name still didn't need to be added to Jane's list.


	4. Chapter 4

**Garrus Vakarian**

"So how in the hell did you end up shooting mercs on Omega after all this time? I taught to better than that," laughed Shepard over her drink. Whatever she was nursing over there smelled like volatile fuel. She'd called it a vodka tonic. I'd known several human drinks, sayings and expressions from all my time in C-sec, and I'd never smelled a vodka tonic that was that much alcohol.

We had exchanged necessary words of friendship, and I told of her my concerns about her working with Cerberus. She told me that she needed me there walking into hell by her side. Even though I joked, there was no way I would say no to her. Hell couldn't take her from me. Not this time.

"You died, doesn't matter what you taught," I answered. I was surprised at the bitterness in my own voice. I had meant it as a joke, but I think I was serious. Shepard didn't seem to notice. Not much of a surprise, really, she was on her third glass by this time. "I wanted out of the Spectres, away from the citadel, and gone from everything that would try to under everything you did. Did you know they publicized that Sovereign was a Geth flagship? The edited out the entire existence of the reapers!" I said. Shepard's expression took on a more somber tone as she put her glass down. She nodded slowly, coiling a finger in her hair absently.

"I know. I talked to _Councilor_ Anderson," she said, flourishing the title of her former commander with disdain. "He's the only one on the council who's not running away from the truth at this point. Who can blame them, though?" she asked, taking another sip, no, _swig_ of her drink. "If I didn't know it were true, I'd want to stay under a rock too."

"But they're the interstellar council!" I growled. "They're responsible for protecting all the council races."

"First and foremost they're politicians, or else they wouldn't be where they are," she sneered into her nearly empty drink. I took a moment to look around the room.

I'd been in Shepard's quarters on the old _Normandy_ a few times. Mostly to watch old vids, or talk when the mess hall was too crowded and noisy. Normally when we chatted, which we'd done quite often in the past, it was in the mess hall. Here on the Sr-2 with all the Cerberus personnel we decided to get away from prying ears instead.

Shepard's quarters on the Sr-1 had been tidy, meticulous even, with a small cabinet for her "Special Occasion" liquor All of the bottles in there had been full, and she barely opened them even after the battle of the citadel. This was different. There were a couple bottles on her bedside table, two or three on her desk, a cupboard full by the fish tank, and all of them were opened, most of them half drunk already. For only having been alive for a little under a week, she was going through alcohol at an astonishing rate.

She refilled her glass quietly, and sat back down on the couch opposite me. "Garrus, talk to me. I died, sure, but you've had other friends die, and you kept going strong."

"Glad someone has some faith in me," I laugh, trying to pass it off. From her expression, it hadn't worked. I shrug, and try my best to piece together the answer. "I was following in your footsteps. I was becoming a Spectre, I was going to protect the galaxy firmly, fairly, all that jazz," I said, and Shepard smirked absently at my use of the silly human saying. "But then your footsteps lead into an explosion, and I no idea where to go from there. The council downplayed you, and everywhere I went you were thought of as a heroic, if mentally unstable, figure. But never as who you were. I had to get away from all that "Play nice" barefaced behavior." Shepard was probably the only person in the world I would have said all this to. She listened intently, quietly, and waited for me to finish my tale of woe. She didn't try to fake sympathy for me, she simply listened, and that made what I had to say easier to tell. She said nothing, she didn't even look at me for most of the time. And even though she didn't say anything, I could tell she was upset. She was sweating, breathing hard, at a few points a look of fear passed through her face. I wondered if she was listening to my story at all, at some points, she was so quiet.

When I told her about Sidonis, she'd offered her help without hesitation. I knew she would. We'd walk through fire for each other, just like the old days. But I didn't know where he was. Since I wasn't tied down any more, I could look for him. It was only a matter of time until the last member of my team joined the rest.

By the time I finished my account of my activities on Omega, and we joked back and forth about everything we could think of, I could feel myself become physically more relaxed than I had in years. Shepard was back. The universe wasn't nearly as dark. I had my hero, my commander, back from the grave. When Shepard kicked me out so she could go to bed after her sixth drink, I even believed that I would see her again tomorrow.

…

I did see her again tomorrow. The first thing she'd done was take me with her in her squad. I mentioned something about my face hurting jokingly, and she just smiled at me and said, "You're gonna have to toughen up. I can't have these Cerberus bastards on my six." I grinned, and gladly obliged. I didn't want her to go out without me, that was for sure. It was heartening to see that she distrusted the rest of her crew as much as I did, but it was also sad. Shepard had done so well last time because every single member of the crew depended on everyone else, and trusted them implicitly. Hell, even Wrex, Williams and I were on good terms because of her.

I filed that thought away for later conversation. There was _time_ again. I could wait, and say whatever I needed to say. And I sure as hell wasn't leaving her side again after what happened last time. The galaxy needed someone like her. She was important, and people like me fell apart without leaders like her.

Shepard, Massani and I suited up, and headed off to the quarantine zone. I remembered hearing about it before, but I hadn't yet looked into it very thoroughly. I smiled wryly when the door guard stopped us.

"A plagues that kills Turians," I said. "You take me to the nicest places, Shepard," I joked. I could see a frown knot her face for a moment, and I quickly added, "Hey, it's your call, Shepard. I'm with you whichever you decide." Still, I hoped she'd bring me. She was right, she couldn't have those Cerberus bastards on her six. Even if they'd wanted to resurrect her, no one knew what else they wanted from her. And I wasn't leaving her side again.

"Garrus, you're coming with me. Solus is gonna need a cure himself, since he's in there, and we need both of you. Let's go. I grinned, more out of relief than gratefulness. Thank the spirits she was taking me along instead of Jacob. I didn't know why, but I particularly disliked and distrusted him.

Entering the quarantine zone was not as big a leap as I thought it would be. It had been closed off for about a week, and yet it looked no different than the rest of Omega, other than it being a little quieter. Well, and the smell of burning bodies, but that wasn't as uncommon as it should be on Omega. The walls were still grimy, the streets still had trash everywhere, and there was still the feeling of hopelessness. There just weren't as many people there.

Well, except the Blue Suns mercs and the Vorcha. I'm pretty sure they thought they were a big threat, or a deterrent at least a little, but we cut through them like butter.

Even though Shepard seemed to be different. I don't know what it was, but I swear she was more frightened than I had ever seen her before. She moved and checked around corners more by route memorization than by really being there.

She was a million light years away, in some far off land.

What was wrong with her, and why didn't Massani notice anything?

We rounded a corner and took cover. I peeked out and saw a wounded Batarian over there. Shepard still hadn't looked, as she was staring at the ground. She looked like she was counting, not focusing on anything in the area.

"Shepard,I said quietly, but urgently. Her head snapped up to look at me, eyes blinking rapidly. I motioned for her to look over the rail, and she did. Her face creased with an expression I can't really name. Contempt, maybe.

She vaulted over the barricade and stepped up to the Batarian. We wasn't wounded, he was a plague victim, bleeding out from sores all over his body. Disgusting creature, but no one deserved to die the way he was. He spat as Shepard approached, and cursed her solely on the basis of being Human. But he was dying, that's for sure. He probably didn't have more than a few hours left. When he'd finished his tirade Shepard asked him where Mordin Solus was.

"Humans looking for the human sympathizer," he'd said. And he continued to curse her, and doctor Solus until he couldn't breathe. I saw Shepard reach for her omni-tool to apply medigel. We had enough, sure. And she was always helping people. Doing the right thing and all that.

But then I saw her draw back, and let the Batarian continue to cough, and bleed. His body crumpled, and he was soon dead.

"Poor bastard," I said before I could stop myself. "Never thought I'd say that about a Batarian." Shepard didn't look at me. I just stared at the plague victim. He might've been a lost cause, but the medigel would at least have eased his pain.

"Let's go," I heard Shepard say. Her voice was so level, so cool, it was as if she hadn't just let someone die. She just kept walking. That stuck with me. Something wasn't right, and it only got worse from there. Through the sights of her pistol there was nothing. She looked like she was a mech, just doing what she was programmed for. She took down Vorcha after Vorcha, merc after merc, but there wasn't so much as a reaction on her face. Just that hollow fear. _How _is Massani not seeing this? I'm good at recognizing human facial expressions, but I didn't think I was good enough that something so blindingly obvious would be invisible to other Humans.

When we finally made it to the clinic and talked to Mordin, he agreed to help much more easily than I'd dared to expect. He believed us instantly about the collectors, jumped to his own wild conclusion within seconds. I know that salarians run faster than most species, but Mordin was a unique specimen, running particularly frantically. Mordin gave us his synthesized cure, and asked us to look for his pupil. Shepard agreed, without hesitation. That's more like it. Helpful, helpful Shepard. Always going out of her way, even for strangers.

We moved through, plunged deeper into the quarantine zone until I started feeling light headed. I coughed a bit. "Is it hot in here?" No response from her at all. It was like she wasn't even there, just her gun. She didn't even use one biotic move through the whole event. Not that I blamed her, she looked too distracted to work that properly, anyway.

She was a million light years away, alone.

But I think the weirdest thing that happened was a little later. Even with all the robotic activity, the fear, the lack of biotics, I don't know what kind of pain she might be in from the Lazarus project, especially since it was interrupted in the final stages. I could forgive most of her behavior up to this point, but this was the final straw. Something was _wrong_.

We found the little brat of an assistant. He'd gone out on his own, even though he was told not to, and he'd tried to play hero. Now he was in the custody of a couple batarians, and on the verge of wetting himself. He burbled something incoherent about trying to help people. He pleased to be let go. The batarians never even saw Shepard with her gun trained on them until she was in the room.

"Stay back, or we kill your friend!"

"I know you're scared. Of the vorcha, of the plague, but this man isn't to blame,"she said calmly, even as the pistol in the other man's hand was right up against Daniel's head. "If he was spreading plague, why would he be this far into Vorcha territory? They're immune.

"She's right," said one of them. The man with the gun lowered it ever so slightly. "t doesn't make any sense." A sneer crossed his face. Or, at least, I think it was a sneer, I never knew with batarians.

"We let him live, we can go, right human?"

"You have my word on it." So calm, so reasonable, so level. I don't like batarians, and after being so ready to kill someone just for being human, I'm not sure I would let them off so easily, but Shepard was in charge, so I went along with it.

All of Daniel's captors holstered their weapons and eyed Shepard suspiciously.

"You got what you wanted, can we go?" asked the leader. Shepard's expression hardened.

"Shoot them," She said, firing the first bullet herself. I didn't actually fire a single round. I had believed her when she said that she'd let them go. She'd always been so honor bound before, never lying. Lying! I couldn't believe it. It was a huge offense to all turians, but coming from her, it was a huge offense, even if I hadn't been turian. Shepard, lying and killing in cold blood? Something was _so wrong_. What had Cerberus _done_ to her?

Daniel appeared almost as surprised as I was, but when he demanded to know why, Shepard just told him to grow up.

"You should have learned by now, smiles and handshakes don't work with them," she said. This? This, coming from this woman who treated every race I'd ever seen her confront with equal respect. This, coming from the woman who had sacrificed the lives of her own species for the citadel council, a council she _knew_ wasn't going to have her back if it was politically inconvenient. What in the _hell_ had Cerberus done to her?

The thought haunted me all the way through the quarantine zone. All the way through the combat, through the reactivation of the live support, through EDI incessantly babbling about locations and objectives. I didn't know what to think.

That emptiness in her face was there again, it had gone when she'd talked to the professor. It had been gone when she talked to the Batarians, but when she wasn't talking, she was gone, replaced by this stone faced psychopath. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be on her bad side, but I didn't know her any more.


	5. Chapter 5

**Jane Shepard**

I hardly made it to my quarters in one piece. It was getting worse and worse every day. I leaned back against the door, sprawled out on the ground. I could hear myself breathing heavily, wheezing even. Good God, the terror I was experiencing was insane. My heart threatened to break through my ribs. My veins burned, and I worried that I was experiencing tachycardia so severe that they were filling up with oxygen rather than blood. The blood, the bodies, the baratians, the stupid assistant who looked and acted so much like Zabaleta. All of it. I couldn't tell you what happened if I tried. I can't remember any of it. I don't know if I could ever step foot on Omega again after that. Jesus.

I don't know how long a time I spent helplessly shuddering and crying against my door, still in my combat armor. When finally I got myself together enough to breathe and think clearly my official shift was over. I should have been sleeping by then, but I had paperwork to deal with. Paperwork, I could deal with that. There were no gun shots, no plagues, no deaths, just requisition forms, status reports, crew details and upgrade statuses. I could handle that.

Names of the crew floated by as I worked. I didn't want to sleep anyway, so this was a better use of my time. Here I could zone out and quietly think to myself. Gardner needed foodstuffs, and I made a response that we'd pick them up next time we were on the citadel.

Pinching the bridge of my nose and sorting through more data pads, I let my mind wander a little. Garrus told me how he was emulating me. Garrus led a squad, and Garrus got them killed. He was doing a fantastic job mimicking my feats. He was getting to be a shaky, unstable mess, just like me. I couldn't think of a better way to emulate me. Instability had become some kind of trademark for me. But he deserves better than that. He doesn't need the shit that I have to deal with. He's still got a chance at redemption, so long as I can halt his journey down the same path I'm on. There's no hope left for me. I'm a broken as that mirror in my lavatory, but Garrus still has a chance.

I replied to a message on my screen politely declining Dr. Chakwas' offer to share the brandy that I picked up for her while on Omega. Getting drunk with the kindly old woman was all too appealing, but trying to keep a clear head and not break down reminiscing about old times with her could have been one of Heracles' great labors, with how hard it would be not to break down.

Garrus, Garrus, Garrus, I sighed. Don't follow in my footsteps, I taught you better than that. I thought I taught you to carve your own path. I heaved a sigh and continued my work, pouring myself some rum to steady the shaking in my hand. Even though he was following my path, I couldn't help but think about Toombs and compare the two of them. I left him behind directionless, no matter how unintentional it was. He was my responsibility. He was my charge. Most of all, he was my friend. God, that I left him behind for two years slowly wasting away on Omega . . . Unforgivable. It's a wonder he can even manage to laugh with me any more.

Donnelly's reports on the engine maintenance were insane. The time spend cleaning and doing minor adjustments was either them slacking off and filling out time sheets wrong, or something really ought to be upgraded. And from the few chats I'd had with the engineers, it didn't seem like they were the time to shirk their duties. There was a brief footnote mentioning faulty couplings. I remembered a salvage store on Omega. I sent a message to Miranda to go see if they had the right parts before we left dock tomorrow while she was procuring fuel and ammo.

I stood up to stretch and change from my armor to my uniform, feeling only a little foolish for not having done it sooner. My head felt comfortably foggy, and my body was warm. I glanced over at my desk to see that I'd managed to finish the rum without realizing it.

The blood on my armor caught my eye as I moved to hang it up. The slightly lighter, slightly more orange red drew my attention more than the rest. The horror I experienced at that moment was vivid.

"_You humans think you're so superior." The words are said around blood as Balak clutches the various wounds I've inflicted on him. __"B__ut you're no better than us!"_

No, no, no! I will _not_ be sucked into another horror flash back!

_I had already sent Kaidan and Garrus to take an account of the civilian casualties, so I have time to make this take as long as it needs to. The smirk on that batarian face is laughable. Shepard knows he's dead meat, just like the humans he just killed. I listen to him accuse me of being a terrorist, of being part of a worthless race, and I just smirk right back at him. I've got him in my sights. He gets to die tonight. Slowly. I shoot him in the shoulder wordlessly. The grunt of pain is sweet to my ears._

_This is for Mindoir, you slave driving bastard._

"_There are thousands more like me," Balak assures me. __"E__ach one willing to die for our cause!" Great. Let's let there be one less tonight._

_I shoot him in the chest, and there's a small hissing sound of a collapsed lung as she cries out in pain._

"What_? What do you want? Details?"_

"_I don't want anything from you," I say. __"I __just want you to feel the pain that so many others have felt because of scum like you." I aim my gun at his head._

"_Just kill me. Get it over with."_

"_No." I shoot out both his kneecaps. __Y__ou get to watch the life seep out of you. You get to feel what my parents felt. You get to feel what Jesse felt. You get to die in a pool of your own blood, with nothing you can do about it._

"Fuck you! This is all your fault! Why the fuck haven't you just shut up already?" I screamed at the mirror. _Jane_ was the one who felt guilty. _Jane_ was the one who was dwelling. I didn't give a shit. I didn't _care_. As far as I was concerned, Balak got what he deserved! "Just shut _up_!" I yelled frantically. I sent three consecutive punches into the already shattered glass, shredding my knuckles even more. Grinding the broken glass into my hands, wishing to hell they were Jane's hands. She was the one making this hurt. She was the one who was revisiting all this shit. It didn't matter.

I'd put medigel on my hands later and cover them with gloves. The crew would never need to notice. My eyeliner had run all the way down to my neck, and my lipstick was irreparably smeared. I wiped it off so that I could reapply the black facial markings, as if that would give me some measure of control over Jane. But the tears didn't stop, and I was left glaring at my own face, nearly uncovered as it hadn't been in years.

"Commander Shepard." I choked on my own breath as I whirled around to see who spoke to me. "Officer Vakarian is at your door. He's requested to see you, despite your door being locked," added EDI. I coughed, releasing my caught breath. I was immediately relieved. I pressed the button on the panel speak to her. What the hell time was it, any way?

"Yes, EDI, go ahead and let him in."

"Yes, commander."

I stared at myself in what was left of my mirror after all the thrashings I'd given it. I tried to make sure I didn't look like as much of a mess as I felt, but Jane stared back at me. Tight-lipped, worried, helpless. I glared at her. Shepard glared at her.

After washing and covering my hands, and wiping the rest of my makeup off - Garrus, of all people, was the only one who I would allow to see me barefaced - I exit the lavatory and greet Garrus, glancing at the clock as I do so. It's 0600 hours, my shift should be starting in about one more. I do my best to put on a smile.

"Garrus, what are you doing up here so early?" I asked. Garrus twitched nervously, his jaw moving in a precursor to saying something difficult.

"I just wanted to make sure you were all right, Shepard," he said finally. I bit the inside of my cheek. Of course I wasn't as stealthy about my panics as I could hope for, but I still wasn't prepared for someone to talk to me about it directly, least of all Garrus. I mean, sure, Garrus and I go back as good friends, and sure, he's not bad at recognizing human expressions, for a turian, but I still thought the person to confront me would more likely have bee one of my human compatriots.

"Things got a little rough there in the quarantine zone. It's not like you," he continued after a slight silence in which I spend much of the time averting my eyes. Part of it was my discomfort at being seen without makeup, as stupid as that sounds, but most of it was that I honestly couldn't remember a single thing. The entire trip was blacked out of my head. It made me too agitated to meet his eyes at first, but it wouldn't do to be bashfully looking at the ground. That just didn't do justice to the great commander Shepard.

"What do you mean?" I asked, sitting down on the couch. "Did I do something lascivious?" I asked with a laugh. Clearly humor isn't going to satiate him or avert him. He sniffed and looked disapprovingly at the empty bottle and stacks of paperwork on my desk, but said nothing of it.

"I mean with those batarians. I just . . . You shot them down, even when you told them you wouldn't. My heart jumped into my throat. Oh, God, that did ring a bell. I lied, and killed them. Who cares if they were going to cause even more harm later, I lied to them. And I did it in front of Garrus, with his turian honor and honesty. What an idiot I am.

I couldn't meet his gaze. Shepard had been in charge. Jane hadn't been there at all. She had been catatonic. I couldn't really remember any of it, but if I really did that, then I screwed up big time.

"Shepard?" At his beckoning, I felt myself snap out of the beginning of yet another flashback. For the life of me, I couldn't say what. Probably just this event. I needed to stop clenching my hands, because I was drawing a good deal of attention to them, and they were only wrapped enough to staunch the bleeding for a little while. There would be red patches on the gauze any minute. But I didn't know what else to do to regulate my heart beat, nor did I know where else to look. It was either the hands in my lap, or up at Garrus' reproachful eyes. I took a shaky breath, not daring to look at him even as I spoke.

"Garrus, I don't have a good explanation. I shouldn't have done that at all. But could I ask you a really awkward and unrelated favor? Please don't call me that any more." There. I said it. I started a chain reaction. I couldn't stop there. I had tried to apologize, and instead I blurted all that out without a single pause in between. My hands stung as I wrung them, driving a little glass deeper and reddening my bandages. When I finally look up, trying to divert attention from my battered knuckles, Garrus was giving me a very confused look, but he hasn't seemed to notice my hands. That's some small blessing, and with that in mind I swallow against the lump in my throat and take a deep, somewhat steadying breath, even thought it's very shaky. "Please just call me Jane. I would appreciate it."

"Um, okay?" he said cautiously. "Why?"

"I'm getting called "Shepard" by everyone. People I don't like, people I don't trust, people I don't want to deal with. Pulling rank on them just seems so stupid, especially since officially I'm dead and not even a Commander any more." Oh my God. The bullshit that can come out of my mouth when I don't want to tell the truth. "The point is, I trust you, and I want to be able to hear something different when you talk to me than when Cerberus talks to me. You're questioning me on something I shouldn't have done, and I need more of that. Working with Cerberus is making the shades of gray all blend together."

_I want to thwart Shepard. I want to make sure she doesn't pull that kind of shit any more, ever again. Please help me, Garrus. I want to be Jane again. I want to get rid of the part of me that needs to kill to flourish._

"Well, when you put it like that, it would be impossible to say no. You apparently trust, like, and want to deal with me. What a complement. Does this mean I should question your actions more often?" _God yes, make sure I don't do that again! Make sure Shepard doesn't gain ground. Make sure she has to fight like hell to ruin things again._

"Only when they're worth questioning, buddy."

"Too bad you didn't tell me this _before_ you opened Grunt's tank."

"And miss the chance to headbutt a krogan? I think I would have had to ignore you on that one."

"Well then, I suppose I should be getting back to calibrations. I'll talk to you later, Sh-" he paused, quietly smiling. His head bent in what might have been the turian equivalent of a blush. 的'll talk to you later, Jane. With that he exits the room.

I stir slightly at the unfamiliar address. No one calls me Jane. No one has since Mindoir. No one other than Kaidan.

Half an hour left until my shift starts. That's just enough time to cry and the cover my face again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Garrus Vakarian**

The crew had steadily grown. I had coaxed Shepard - Er, Jane, as she now wanted to be called - into talking to most of the crew, and getting a better sense of who they were and what they were about. We'd even done a few favors by way of missions for the crew. On the occasions when I sat at the mess table I no longer heard awkward commentary about how they were serving with _the_ Commander Shepard. Instead I heard the latest news of other crew members, I heard the crew informally referring to her as the commander, or possibly even just Shepard. It was heartening. There was teamwork and camaraderie going on, and I'd helped Shepard - Dammit, _Jane _- facilitate that.

It was going to take some serious getting used to. She'd always been Shepard to me. The embodiment of strength and bravery, black and white, even right down to her makeup - which I still could imagine her without, despite having seen it. To suddenly ask for the change of name, and in such a strange way as she did, had left me with no lack of confusion. Still, the simple friendliness of the gesture hadn't been lost on me. And since she'd always called me just "Garrus," it was kinda nice to have some reciprocity there. I'd have to get used to it somehow. She'd seemed to insistent about it, and I'd never been so close to a human as I was with her, so I didn't know if it would offend her to use her last name even if she asked me not to. I laughed and shook my head at my food as I took another bite. I knew Shepard well enough to know she wouldn't be offended at something so small.

The non-essential operational crew now numbered seven, including Shepard herself.

"Hey, since you're doing all these favors," I joked. "Why don't we go take shore leave somewhere for a day or two." She laughed heartily.

"Yeah, while I'm at it, I'll buy a pony. I'll name him Harvey, and make sure EDI and Kelly can clean up after it for me," she said. "But yeah, a day off might be nice,she conceded. "I'll look over the area and see what's close by." With that, she disappeared to the star map to choose a location. A dry chuckle came from the overhead.

"You sure about that, commander? I've heard some pretty nasty vacation stories from that place," said Joker, his voice distorted slightly from the projection.

"Just set the course and fly like a good Harvey," said Shepard.

"Ouch. I guess that answers why EDI would be cleaning up after me."

"Commander," came Kelly's tiny, cheerful voice.

"What is it, Yeoman?" asked Shepard. One pang that still gummed up the works was how Shepard and Kelly got along. Oh, they didn't hate each other, but Shepard clearly thought that Kelly was a particularly useless addition to the crew, whose only real talent was acting like an indicator light for her emails.

"You have a message from the Illusive Man," said Kelly. Her voice was bright and cheerful, lacking all the foreboding that sentence should have held. I groaned inwardly. Kelly was a little naive, and that was one of the few personality traits that Shepard and I had never really been able to cope with.

To her credit, Shepard managed to maintain a straight face. "All right, I'll take it in the comm-room."

Wherever we'd been headed, she'd told me to put it on hold while she answered the call. I'd only just gotten back from relaying the order to Joker - and sitting through what he undoubtedly though was witty commentary, annoying as it was. Not three minutes later she'd come back out of the comm-room and told Joker to set a new course. At the languor in her stride - which had sadly become all too familiar - I asked her what was wrong.

"Horizon," she said. "And therefore Ashley."

Instinctively I reached a hand for her shoulder. She was trembling, whether from anger or from fear I couldn't tell. It was bad enough that Horizon was another little fringe human colony with the Collectors being an inevitability, but the fact that Ashley was there was a particular sore spot.

"I need to go take care of some paperwork," she said, pulling her shoulder loose and marching off to her quarters.

Shepard had in the past few days expressed wishes to avoid, at all costs, Illium and Tuchanka. She'd said that she didn't want to reopen old wounds, and she didn't want to be reminded of a past she couldn't have back, a team she trusted with her life. Ashley was probably the person she wanted to avoid the most. After Vermire, her and Ashley's relationship only became more strained. They hadn't been that close to begin with, and it only got worse after Shepard had to choose Ash over Kaidan. It was the sort of thing that she only confided when she was drunk, which was getting to be a nightly event. I actually started stealing booze from her quarters and getting it out the air lock. It was kind of fun, in a way, playing a stupid game to protect a friend, but I needed to find a slightly more permanent solution before she did herself some real harm. She seemed to take it upon herself to administer strange punishments, such as not drinking water before bed, and insuring that she'd have a hangover if she wasn't expecting combat. Little, stupid things like that. But they were starting to add up. Some time soon there was going to be a threshold crossed.

Really, I was starting to see the cracks all around her. She was barely holding together, both figuratively and literally. Her face was a peeling, broken layer of skin over glowing orange implants. She looked weird, even for a human. And she wasn't sleeping, wasn't eating right, still hadn't used a single biotic power since I'd seen her. She was actually quite the wreck. I was thankful that the rest of the crew couldn't see it, but I didn't know how to fix it.

As a last ditch effort to understand and help, I hacked myself into some files on commander Jane Shepard, both what few of the Alliance files weren't encrypted beyond my skill, and what other sources I had acquired along the way of my rise to vigilante extraordinaire. I had plenty of time to kill, as we weren't actually very near Horizon yet.

Some part of me wondered if I should just go up to Shepardand ask her point blank about some her state of mind. I hadn't been getting any straight answers out of her for weeks, though, so I didn't see why things would be different the next time. So what if hacking into a few of her personnel files was intrusive? I was a concerned friend, and she needed someone nosy to help her out.

The initial things I found didn't surprise me very much. Born on a colony, never lived on Earth, honored for her heroic acts on Akuze, the cursory stuff that everyone who'd ever read _Galactic Gossip_ knew. I found footage of her all over the extranet, as her name was always associated with 鍍he first human Spectre. I found some interviews by Wong, and another by Al-Jilani. Everywhere I looked, I found something that belied the broken creature who roamed the ship these days.

Then I found it. A veritable treasure trove of information on Jane Shepard, almost an encyclopedia. It claimed to be a fan site dedicated to her, but it had more of a following than the rest, and was edited by many of the users. Every minute piece of information publicized about here was on here. I had to hack a few things to get into it without giving any personal information, and to be given all access, but it was easily within my reach.

There were several articles linked to the colony Shepard was said to have grown up on. A small human colony called Mindoir had been brutally assaulted by batarian slavers. From the dates, it looked like it happened when she was only sixteen. Some of the footage that was linked in with these articles made me nearly retch. I had to turn it off before I'd even combed through a fraction of it.

I moved on to the detailing of her military career. She'd shined in basic, with a few commendations, and a few disciplinary measures here and there. Basically like any turian recruit, I thought ruefully.

There were several articles that appeared to be entirely uncited, or if they had citations it was to lurid pornographic sties that put _Fornax_ to shame. One such article told of how she was solely responsible for keeping the volus off the Interstellar Council, and another that seemed to be a list of impossible things that Commander Shepard and her allies had apparently done. I skipped past those when I saw them, despite it being amusing the occasional 吐actabout myself. I was trying to find something closer to the truth than 敵arrus Vakarian has counted to infinity. Twice."

Several hours later, gnawing at my talons and staring glassily at my screen, my eyes refusing to read, I determined I was even more amazed than I'd ever been before. To think she went through all this, and still managed to be the hero she was on the battle for the Citadel. To think she went through everything, or even just most of what I found written up here to be credible, and still had herself pulled together enough to defeat Sovereign. I was more humbled at that moment than I could ever remember being. Whatever it was that held her together, I didn't have anything of that caliber. I went off the deep end because she died. She didn't go off the deep end when every force I can think of was trying to pull her there. She just went off the deep end when she died.

That's not entirely unreasonable, when you think about it. The people who've supposedly come back from the dead have all been crazy prophets and bizarre warlords, even cross species this held true. All Shepard had to hold her together was the Reaper threat. She was forging herself into a sharp point to head it off, but she probably didn't know how to think about anything else.

I flick off my terminal screen. The main battery hasn't been calibrated yet today. But if the last twenty times I've done it have been any indication, I'm gonna go ahead and say that it's fine. The little blue EDI light says it's well within operational parameters, and right now Shepard needs me more than this gun does.

I slipped out of the main battery as non-nonchalantly as I could, hoping not to draw too much attention to myself. We had a good, solid five hours before we reached Horizon, so I had plenty of time to catch up on my duties for the day. But I still didn't want then to see me shirking them. When I got to the elevator whirred up a couple of levels, and opened at the captain's cabin. I stepped out and reached my hand out for the door panel.

What was I gonna say? "Oh, hey Shepard, I know we're both still on duty, and all, but I just hacked into some of your personal files and I wanted to talk about them. Good Job, Garrus, you let yourself get all the way to the captain's cabin before you let yourself think about your actions. Yeah, sounds about right.

"_What the hell are you trying to do, break me down?"_

I had never heard Shepard's voice tempered with so much anger before. I was surprised I could even hear her through the walls, and wondered who she was talking to. Probably someone on her vid screen. But I'd already pried into her personal information once today though, I'd be a sucker not to do it again when the opportunity presented itself so well. Investigative C-Sec habits die hard.

"_One run in with Williams isn't going to matter."_ The tone was dismissive, as if rebutting someone stupid. There was a short pause. _"W__hy are you always trying to make this about _him_?_" This time Shepard's voice took on an accusatory, almost hateful tone. "_Move the fuck on, _Jane_. You're so fixated on that shit. We have work to do." _While I would have to be the first to admit to indulging in little mirror pep-talks before missions or stressful situations, this was a little bit far from what I would expect of her. Also, not so very peppy at all.

"_You're damn,_" thud, "_right," t_hud, "_I killed,_" thud, "_those batarian monsters!_" This sentence was punctuated with the sounds of something colliding followed by the gentle tinkle of fractured glass. Against my better judgment, I stayed outside. If Shepard was breaking stuff in there and yelling at herself, I probably should have gone in to stop her. And yet I didn't want to be the next pummeling victim.

"_They deserve the same treatment Balak got, and more, and you know it."_ I read the extranet reports on Balak right after the events of X57. At the time, I'd assumed instantly that some of the engineers had messed with his corpse after Shepard had left, and it was publicly speculated that she mutilated the corpse. After my reading today, and this little morsel, I think I was too trusting of her.

"_Jane, why the fuck are you so naive? Trying to make me feel guilty about batarians, trying to get a friend you can trust. You won't break me down like that. What were you thinking telling Garrus to call you by your name?"_

This . . . Well, I had no idea what to say about this. This wasn't what I expected to find when I came up, and it's different still from what I expected to overhear. I thought maybe she would be running herself through the mission, thinking out loud. This was different. This was the ranting of a madman.

"_Well, Garrus is just as fallible as anyone else. Don't trust him. Trust me. I've saved you how many times? Why do you trust _him_ more than _me_? _I_ pulled you through, even when you were ready to curl up and die."_

I stopped dead in my breathing when I heard that. She trusted me, _me_, over a part of herself? I was flattered, but mostly just frightened. That's a lot of trust for someone that important to place on my shoulders. I tried to hide my bashful expression as I hoped the the _spirits _I was worth her trust.

"_You know what? That's bullshit, about you wanting to be in control. With an attitude like that, you'll stay backseat forever, and it will always be Shepard protecting Jane. Your pathetic attempts are, well, pathetic."_

And suddenly it clicked. I understood what was going on, and I understood why she'd asked that favor of me. Shepard and Jane weren't interchangeable, and I had to start thinking in a different way about her容r, them? I was right. _Jane_ needed me more than those guns.

I moved to press the door console again. Again, I hezitated. I wondered which one I knew. Which one I admired, and which one I was afraid of. But they were the same, right?

In the end, I did press the console to go in and have a nice, friendly chat with Jane. Shepard could go rot, if Jane didn't want to deal with her.


End file.
